In the time it takes to respond to just one hoax call an entire family could die in a house fire.
With 167 hoax calls made to the fire service in Derry and five attacks on fire appliances in 2006/2007 that puts too many innocent people at risk because of someone’s sick sense of humour.
Although the number of attacks and hoax calls in Derry has decreased dramatically in the past few years, with 222 hoax calls in 2005/2006 and four attacks, local firefighters stress that one attack or hoax is one too many.
Dave Allen, a firefighter at Crescent Link fire station, describes a hoax call as: “A hoax call is one that has been made by someone with the intention of turning the fire service out to an incident where there is no need for them to turn out. Typical examples are kids going into a call box and saying there is a house on fire, or grass on fire and we turn out and there isn’t actually a fire or incident.”
I was also amazed to hear some of the effects a hoax call has. “There was an incident in England,” Dave told me, “A TV camera crew was with an appliance and were sent to a false alarm and redirected to an actual incident and if I remember correctly three young children died in that fire.”
When I asked Ronnie Watson, Crew Commander on Blue Watch based at Crescent Link fire station, whether he thought the numbers of attacks were on the decrease or increase, he replied: “Definitely on the decrease. I think the advertisements on TV and the radio are getting the message across.”
In 2004/5 there were 5,823 hoax calls and last year the numbers decreased to 4,412 but that is still such a big number and the hoax calls should be decreasing even further.
Talking to firefighters Dave Allen and Ronnie Watson, I learned about hoax calls and attacks, and I was surprised to hear about them as I was quite unaware of what a huge problem they are. I was shocked to hear some of the stories about the firemen having personal experience of being attacked when they are trying to do their job.
“Once I was hit by a stone and quite a number of times we were attacked by stones thrown at the appliance,” Dave Allen told me, “Recently there was an incident in the town where an appliance’s windscreen was broken and that appliance couldn’t go to calls. It was off the run until we got mechanics in to replace the windscreen. These attacks are mindless.”
However, I was relieved to hear that this year the attacks on firemen have decreased, and hopefully it will stay that way. Ronnie Watson explained the negative impact of an attack as, “Very demoralising. The fact is we are here to serve the community and all sections of the community. If we get attacked the impact is that morale goes down and maybe an injured fire crew member won’t be able to attend an incident or a damaged appliance won’t be able to attend which means that the level of fire cover within an area may go down, and there may be a serious risk of death within the community.”
These attacks and hoax calls obviously come in the way when fire fighters are trying to do their job, and once Dave Allen even said he had to leave a scene on a number of occasions when it got too dangerous.
This is ridiculous, as people who are in danger within a fire won’t be able to get any help because of the attacks on the firemen and even to the damage of appliances. These problems are obviously a huge problem, and not only should we stop these attacks and hoax calls immediately, but by doing so, make sure we can make a difference to our community.
This article was written by Headliners member Sunita Singh Hans (13)
